Sunday, May 31, 2015

31 May - My Feedly!

  blogger-following

Researchers develop dog bark translator
New computer software is promising to make it possible to translate the meaning behind dog barks. Scientists from the Technical University of Madrid ...
Joe Biden on son Beau: Success is when your children turn out better than you
U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden spoke about his son Beau Biden in a speech at Yale University's commencement less than one month before Beau died of brain cancer at the age of 46. Joe spoke of his son with pride, noting that Beau had gone to Syracuse University's law school out of loyalty to his deceased mother, and later served as Delaware's attorney general. The vice-president joked that his son h
Forget Taylor Swift: Metalheads are Spotify's biggest listeners
When I tried to reach Bob Lugowe, director of promotions and new media at Relapse Records, he couldn't get back to me immediately. He and the entire staff of Relapse were at a death metal festival Such is the life of metalheads, perhaps the most dedicated fans to their genre "Whether it's wearing a 'battle jacket' full of sewn on patches of their favorite bands, buying every vinyl color and e
Sunday Toons
* * * Perry Dorrell blogs as PDiddie at Brains and Eggs, usually on topics concerning the strange brew of Texas politics. He's also on Twitter @PDiddie.
 

The Corbett Report     

Interview 1047 – New World Next Week with James Evan Pilato
[audio mp3="https://www.corbettreport.com/mp3/2015-05-29%20James%20Evan%20Pilato.mp3"][/audio]This week on the New World Next Week: rumours of WWIII abound as the 2D chess game heats up; Monsantogeddon nears as Syngenta merger develops; and the FEC backs off plans to regulate political speech on the internet.
Interview 1046 – Patrick Wood Exposes the Technocracy Agenda
[audio mp3="http://www.corbettreport.com/mp3/2015-05-27%20Patrick%20Wood.mp3"][/audio]24/7 surveillance. Smart grid controls. Carbon rationing. Today we talk to "Technocracy Rising" author Patrick Wood about the hidden history of technocracy, the dark plan for a resource-based economy that is being pushed by the Trilateral Commission, the UN, and other globalist institutions in
Interview 1045 – Financial Survival in the Cashless Society
[audio mp3="http://www.corbettreport.com/mp3/2015-05-14%20Financial%20Survival.mp3"][/audio]This week on Financial Survival, Alfred and James discuss the BBC, Japan's attempt to counter the AIIB, Hillary's chances in 2016, the secret meeting in London to discuss ending cash, and much more.
 

The EnvironmentaList     

In Review: The Water Knife
By Paolo BagicalupiOrbit, 2015, 376 pages
Saving the Endangered Chinese Swamp Cypress
National Geographic Explorer expedition heads into Laos forests to study newly discovered population of this endangered tree in its threatened ecosystem
LNG Terminals and the Environmental Unlearning of Philadelphia
The lure of fossil fuel for America’s fifth largest city
North Carolina Could Become Fifth State With an Ag-Gag Law
Bill sitting on Governor McCrory’s desk would make it illegal to document or film animal abuse on factory farms
 

Is the BBC biased?     

Keep swallowing that 'Tablet'
Damian Thompson of The Spectator and The Catholic Herald did a 'me' and speculated yesterday about what would be on this morning's Sunday on Radio 4:Wonder if the wildly biased @BBCR4Sunday is planning a hatchet job on Cardinal #Pell tomorrow. Stourton is friends with Pell’s opponents.— Damian Thompson (@holysmoke) May 30, 2015 No such hatchet job on Cardinal Pell took place; although he was menti
Carpe diem
Radio 4's Broadcasting House, coming live from a tent at the Hay Festival (though sounding as if it were being broadcast from inside a tin drum), paused for thought for a moment today. We heard extracts from one of Clive James's latest poems - read by the man himself. It was so good I thought I'd share it with you. (The full poem can be found here).My daughter’s garden has a goldfish poolWith six
The Curious Incident of the Panorama Episode that Disappeared in the Night
The fates have conspired against me here.I checked out an old episode of Panorama on iPlayer yesterday - the one where Panorama brought in famous U.S. pollster Nate Silver before the election to answer the question, Who Will Win the Election?I wanted to check how well Nate did, given how effusive presenter Richard Bacon had been about his astonishing accuracy as a pollster.The answer is that he wa
Impartiality
Here's proper impartiality for you: two pieces from Standpoint magazine - one bashing the BBC, the other bashing people who bash the BBC:Time For A Leaner BBC To Pay Its Way, by Stephen GloverPredictable Pot-Shots At Auntie, by Nick CohenHere's a sample from each of them:Stephen GloverIf the Tories can reasonably consider themselves hard done by during the election, UKIP is entitled to think it wa
 

The Rules of Exposition     

William Zinsser: Writing English as a Second Language
Michael Leddy links to a William Zinsser article on effective writing. Good stuff.
It has to look right
In high school I took an art class. We had to draw stuff and paint stuff, you know. (I.m such an aficionado!) There was an odd-looking tree outside our house, and I painted that. The teacher didn't like it.I wish I could remember her name.It was a big old tree, with a tiny little branch sticking out the side of it a foot or two above the ground. Weird: trees don't look like that. That was why I wa
 

A Closer Look: Jody Paterson     

Who you gonna call? Fact Checkers
The Washington Post is doing some great work these days with their Fact Checker feature, which is digging into all kinds of "statistics" being thrown around out there to see where the figures come from and whether there's any truth to them. Think of it as the rhetoric version of that TV show Mythbusters.Today's myth-busting was around the "fact" that 300,000 U.S. children are a

A Different Perspective     

Richard Doble and the Roswell Slides - Update
Yes, I know that I said I was done with the Roswell Slides but then I’ve published the comments by Tony Bragalia and Don Schmitt. I’ve heard nothing from Tom Carey and don’t personally know the others involved in this. However Richard Doble has issued a statement about the ongoing mess which might be of interest here. Although his comments mirror much of what he said during his Skype interview on
Bonilla's Comet
In the UFO literature, one of the older cases frequently quoted as the first ever UFO photographs (see Blum, Ralph and Judy, Beyond Earth: Man’s Contact with UFOs, page 45; Vallee, Jacques, Anatomy of a Phenomenon, page 30, for example) happened on August 12, 1883. Jose Bonilla, an astronomer at the Zacatecas Observatory, saw dozens of objects cross the disk of the sun and he photographed some of
A Final Fatal Statement about the Roswell Slides
(Blogger’s Note: I had said that I would post, without comment, any statement from Don Schmitt or Tom Carey. I did that with Carey’s statement which suggested he was still of the opinion that the slides showed an alien creature. The note appended at the end, written by Schmitt, suggested that he was unaware that others had independently deblurred the note and that the placard was readable. Seeing
Roswell Slides Statement by Tom Carey with Note from Don Schmitt
(Blogger’s note: Yes, I said there would be nothing more about the Roswell Slides, but I also said that if there was a statement issued by Tom and Don, I would publish it without editorial comment. There is a statement that Tom issued. Before it was published elsewhere, Don had asked for a couple of modifications. That statement was published before Don asked for the changes. This is the statement

A Very Public Sociologist     

The Coming Tabloid Assault on Charities
A couple of straws in the wind, perhaps, but I have a feeling something's a-brewing.Exhibit one: Olive Cooke, a 92-year-old poppy seller and giver to charitable causes took her own life after, apparently, being repeatedly pestered by cold callers asking for more cash (she already gave to 27 charities every month) and receiving dozens of begging letters, week in, week out.Exhibit two: Robert Newman
Local Council By-Elections May 2015
PartyNumber of CandidatesTotal Vote%+/- AprAverage/contest+/-Apr+/-SeatsConservative72124,822  36.1% +17.9%   1,773 +1,614   +9Labour76112,813  32.6%   -4.1%   1,484 +1,004    -4LibDem50  29,493    8.5%   -6.5%     590    +197    -2UKIP42  31,659    9.2%   -4.5%     754    +595    -3Green36  17,394    5.0%  +5.0%     483    +483    -1SNP*  3  12,197    3.5%  +3.5%   4,066 +4,066   +1PC**  5    3,1
The Melanie Baddeley "Affair"
Meet Melanie Baddeley. She is one of two councillors elected from Stoke-on-Trent's Abbey Hulton ward. She, along with a representative from UKIP, was returned by the local elections that took place three weeks ago. Melanie has been a councillor before, representing Abbey Green (as was) between 2008 and 2011. And today she was due to be made the deputy Lord Mayor. All in all, quite unremarkable rea
Ridge Racer 6 for the Xbox 360
I love racing games. Yet, as long-time readers know, I'm not so keen on modern games. By 'modern' I mean the era inaugurated from around 2000 onwards with the coming of the Playstation2, and it's "competition" from Microsoft and Nintendo. Yes, for readers under 25 that is aeons ago. 15 years is a long bloody time, but I'm sticking with that definition because reasons, and that your humbl

A Way to Live     

Their appreciation knows no bounds
Here, we are adding beans around the edges of the corn block. A few days ago we added pumpkin seeds down the middle. The corn is planted a little thickly for this but I am always expecting high mortality and then when everything lives, I can't bear to thin. Not right away, anyway.The ground is scraped in the appropriate spot for small sprouted weeds, then indented by the end of the bean pipe. The
French Pink
There are two climbing roses by her gate,one to each side, with velvet blooms, small,but heavily scented, suitable for soaps, salvesand potpourri. They blossom out together,several hundred, perhaps a thousand whorlsFrench pink, shading to cream, the hauntof matching shy arachnids. How tall they'd growshe doesn't know, having twined an arch of willowwhips atop her gate, to bind them to.In her middl
It was good
Providing partial shade to greens with broadbeans is all right, but eventually this gets to be too much of a good thing, so I'm walking up and down with a pair of scissors, basically deadheading the beans. it's chop-and drop; the tops will join the grass clippings and straw as mulch.Here we have some black-seeded Simpson lettuce, which seems to be thriving with the beans. You may also find Red Sai
She knows the weeds will win
She knows the weeds will win. Sometimes, at night,Hearing them grow in her dreams, she'll wake, graspingEven in her two hands, a phantom thistle, orKnotweed, errant blackberry, or teasel.Now not able to turn and sleep, she'll rise, throwingOn her robe, and step out into night;Walking the way the slim moon shows her,She throws aside her garden gate and listens.There might be corn and tomatoes chatt

A.E.Brain     

F-0180 Aerial Test of Torpedo
The second US cruise missile - though the first was a close contemporary. Yes, this was Rocket Science, 1919 style. Had the Great War continued, development wouldn't have been delayed, and it would have been in service by late 1919 in the strategic bombardment role - probably at night and in cloudy conditions, as it was a fairly easy target.May I present - the "Kettering Bug"

Activist Teacher     

Climate stupidity and human survival
By Denis G. Rancourt [a] The human animal has an instinct to identify potential dangers and to warn others. It is a built-in survival mechanism of any animal that lives in a group. And it is a strong and constant activity, re-enforced by environmental stressors. This plays out on several time scales, from the immediate in the case of a potential physical assault, to the weekly in checking
Canadians, before you vote, remember the Liberals
There is no point replacing Harper with a brainless twit who will continue to drive Canada in the same direction. Trudeau is no Trudeau, when it comes to Canadian independence and fundamental values. Trudeau is the continuation of the new Liberal line: Paul Martin, Stéphane Dion, Michael Ignatieff ... Martin destroyed the party by infighting to veer the country clearly towards US interests
Interesting reader-suggested links about learning and schooling
An avid reader of this blog, contacted me and suggested these very interesting links about schools and about learning: Authoritarian Schooling: A Catalogue of Damage compiled by David Gribble Annenberg Learner: Teacher resources and professional development across the curriculum Meaningful Learning Research Group Articles How we confuse symbols and things Student Alternative
On the increasing legal suppression of freedom of thought and expression in so-called free and democratic societies
 By Denis G. Rancourt Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties. --John Milton, Areopagitica, 1644 My main overriding message is far from new: that freedom of thought, opinion, and expression is the very basis of a fair society. That freedom of speech is the foundational individual right for a truly democratic system to exist or

Adrienne's Corner     

Would someone please explain to me what the latest feminist outrage called "mansplaining" is...
because I have beaucoup work to do outside before it gets hot and therefore, no time to look it up.  Thank you in advance.
The Real O'Neals: Is this what ABC thinks is funny?...
or more importantly, does the public think this is funny?The Real O'Neals, an anti-Catholic sitcom, is neither funny nor does it display the tiniest bit of truth.  There is nothing "real" about this silly show.  A statue of the Virgin Mary, mother of God, on the back of a toilet?  Hilarious.  Not.From ABC:A contemporary take on a seemingly perfect Catholic family, whose lives take an une
Wild Bill: Black Privilege...
is a reality.

AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE)     

Teaching peace to protect young Nigerians from hate
Islamic leaders in impoverished Borno State band together to keep vulnerable youth from the grip of Boko Haram.
Egypt and Saudi Arabia deny split over Syria
Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir says he does not know where reports of Egyptian disapproval over Syria come from.
ISIL suicide bombers target Iraqi army HQ in Fallujah
Eight car bombs have detonated near Iraqi army headquarters outside city of Fallujah, killing at least 20 soldiers.
Nepal schools reopen after devastating earthquakes
Thousands of schools across districts worst hit by two earthquakes have reopened with temporary classrooms.

Allen L Roland's Weblog     

Lebron James Versus Stephen Curry / Looming Epic Nba Championship Final
The NBA pretenders Atlanta and Houston are being eliminated by Cleveland and Golden State in the division NBA championships. Now it's finally time for the show down we have all been waiting for ~ NBA MVP Stephen Curry versus all world LeBron James in an epic battle for NBA supremacy: Allen L Roland, Ph.DIt's difficult not to get excited about the upcoming NBA finals  between the Cleveland Cavalier
Worldwide Spiritual Resurrection Happening
 Art design  by Cameron GrayAs Teilhard de Chardin once correctly wrote ~ We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience ~ for right now the innate evolutionary forces of love and light are manifesting  on the planet and they are demanding that we all participate and find our role in this rapidly evolving loving plan in action: Allen L Rola
My Living Will / Updated
             Allen L Roland at 81 going on 82 years youngSince I’m approaching 82 and partially disabled with a military service related condition, it’s time to update my Living Will along with a promise ~ inspired of course by the irrepressible Paul Rudnick of the New Yorker: Allen L Roland, Ph.D"Me and Merle were talking, ain't many of us left ~ We were chuckling about that. Where'd everybo
Give 'Em Hell, Bernie / The Game Is On
 Admit it, most of us know the political system is rigged, that most Americans have been marginalizedand silenced by a growing plutocracy and that corporations are now firmly in control, that a truly honest politician is an oxymoron, that is until now ~ Bernie Sanders is a lifeboat in a sea of political deception and lost hope. Bernie is an honest Independent politician who cares enough now in 201

AMERICAN KABUKI     

Hacking Online Polls And Other Ways British Spies Seek To Control The Internet
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/07/14/manipulating-online-polls-ways-british-spies-seek-control-internet/HACKING ONLINE POLLS AND OTHER WAYS BRITISH SPIES SEEK TO CONTROL THE INTERNETBY GLENN GREENWALD @ggreenwald 07/14/2014Featured photo - Hacking Online Polls and Other Ways British Spies Seek to Control the InternetThe secretive British spy agency GCHQ has developed covert tools to seed
U.S. Approves SunOpta System for Detecting Genetically Modified Crops
Lets hope this is better self-policing than the banks do... I am quite familiar with the logistic supply chain thoroughness of companies like Cargill, Pillsbury and other agriculture commodity companies in Minnesota, yet the supply chain is only as good as its weakest link.  I worked for 3 years in supply chain software systems and have many friends in these companies.  -AKhttp://www.nytimes.com/2
Everyone Is Fleeing Oil's Biggest Fund
"Smart money" is leaving crude oil... zero point energy on the horizon? -AKhttp://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-28/oil-fund-s-biggest-outflow-in-six-years-signals-rally-may-falterEveryone Is Fleeing Oil's Biggest Fundby Moming Zhou1:01 AM CESTMay 29, 2015The biggest U.S. exchange-traded fund that tracks oil is heading for the largest two-month outflow in six years, raising conc
Clear as mud
From a Twitter post by Dylan Ratigan

American Scofflaw     

“這是中國海軍......你走吧!”
CNN在船上的P8-A海神,美國最先進的監視和海底狩獵飛機.“這是中國海軍......這是中國海軍......請走開......為了避免誤會,”英語語音通過飛機在美國有線電視新聞網存在的無線電劈啪作響。

ArmsControlWonk     

Photo Interpretation Student Handbook
Sadly, there is no textbook for imagery analysis. I would love to contribute to one someday, but until that becomes an option, here’s the March 1996 Unclassified Photo Interpretation Student Handbook. I picked it up from from a rather unusual meeting on a DC trip and several students lovingly/begrudgingly scanned it for our benefit. It’s an excellent resource for identifying everything from transp
China MIRVs Some Missiles
The Pentagon’s annual report on China’s military power (PDF) describes for the first time, China’s CSS-4 mod 3 missile equipped with multiple independently-targetable re-entry vehicles. MIRVs! Hans Kristensen noticed the passage and, over the weekend, David Sanger and Bill Broad published a nearly 1000 word piece in the New York Times that includes quotes by several experts including Jeffrey. Aaro
A Wobbly Nuclear Order
The global nuclear order is becoming more dynamic and unsettled. The top tier is contracting, but at a slow pace. Newcomers feature prominently in the second tier, eclipsing the old-timers. And the newest entrants into the nuclear club either have or seem to want three-digit-sized arsenals – something few envisioned when these late arrivals barged into the nuclear club. A bumpy NPT Review Conferen
Notes from the RevCon II
I was just in New York for a few days and heard some very interesting things about the coming trainwreck at the RevCon. But I wasn’t allowed to repeat any of them! Lucky us, Gaukhar Mukhatzhanova has written another “Notes from the RevCon” post.  (See her first note here.) While she was careful to stick to things said in public, published online and reported in the papers, it’s kind of amazing to

Big Dan's Big Blog     

Pam Geller and the Garland Texas "Shooting": They Just Won't Stop The FALSE FLAGS
Enemies within the gates ruining America (rightwing media calls her a "patriot"): Jewish Zionist Mossad Agent Pam GellerThere are so many FALSE FLAGS in this country that it seems like I can't get onto another subject when another one comes up to write about. This time Jewish anti-Islam hatemonger Pam Geller was involved. How can someone have a "job" that solely involves puttin

Blood & Treasure     

separatism and discipline
I have an op-ed up at the National on the pro-independence turn in Hong Kong politics. Elsewhere, James has an examination in Vice on the shuanggui process, the means by which boss Xi and the gang are purging the Party. I'm not too keen on the Hong Kong indy crowd, but you can understand here what they want to separate themselves from.
mass incident watch: Linshui
How much do you want high speed rail? Enough to riot when you don't have it? Tens of Thousands of residents of the southwestern county of Linshui gathered in the morning and marched about 3km. Photos posted by the protesters on social media also showed violent attacks by a police tactical team(SWAT)and the resistance that followed lasted all day and well into the night... ...The residents want (n
a letter from the hearse chasers
Just over a week ago we got a letter addressed to my stepson. This happens occasionally, though he's long since moved out. We bin the obvious junk and keep the other stuff for when he comes home on a visit.  But this time my partner decided to invoke a mum's privilege to poke her nose into her offspring's business. The letter was from a company called Estate Research, “a firm of genealogists who s

BP Slick     

Pipeline that leaked wasn't equipped with auto shut-off
Pipeline that leaked wasn't equipped with auto shut-off Workers prepare an oil containment boom at Refugio State Beach, north of Goleta, Calif., Thursday, May 21, 2015. More than 7,700 gallons of oil has been raked, skimmed and vacuumed from a spill that stretched across about 9 miles of California coast, just a fraction of the sticky, stinking goo that escaped from a broken pipeline, officia
Finding California oil spill's cause could take months
Finding California oil spill's cause could take months Published: Friday, May 22, 2015 at 3:30 a.m.Last Modified: Friday, May 22, 2015 at 3:05 a.m. GOLETA, Calif. (AP) — The operator of a broken oil pipeline that fouled a California shoreline says it could be weeks or even months before investigators are able to determine what caused the break and subsequent spill.Crews have yet to excavate the

Brave New World     

'Plastic Will Do Nicely,Sir'
The UK Payments Council today stated that the use of cash by consumers, businesses and financial organisations fell to 48% of payments last year. This means that cashless payments have overtaken cash payments for the first time in the UK. The cash volumes are expected to fall further by 30% to some 34% over the next 10 years. It is claimed that 4.4% of adults ‘rarely use cash and the average ATM w
Spotify No Longer Just Music
When we look at the future of on demand and streamed media services the clue is in the word media. We are no longer shackled to thinking of vertical movie, music, games but media hubs that satisfy all under one subscription.To bring the point firmly home Spotify has announced it is adding more non-music content to its app. The expanded service will include radio podcasts, news bulletins, video cli
Are Enhanced eBooks a Digital Grail?
What is the state of the ebook market and are there significant differences between the various different market segments and geographical regions?The question is not new and there are a significant number of opinions on the answers. However, different markets move at different speeds and sometimes in different direction and facts are often out of date and views often reflect vested interests. The
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